toString vs. toUtf8

[Gregor Richards]

Sean Kelly wrote:
> Walter Bright wrote:
>> Phobos (and D) has undergone some evolution in the thinking about 
>> unicode strings, and it certainly has a few anachronisms in its names. 
>> But I think we've evolved to the point where going forward, we know 
>> what to do:
>>
>> char[] => string
>> wchar[] => wstring
>> dchar[] => dstring
>>
>> These are all unicode strings. Putting non-unicode encodings in them, 
>> even temporarily, should be discouraged. Non-unicode encodings should 
>> use ubyte[], ushort[], etc.
> 
> This seems fair.  It would reinforce the idea that strings really do use 
> a common encoding format, and that foreign encodings are relegated to a 
> different form of transport.  Now if only toWString didn't look so 
> horrible :-)
> 
> 
> Sean

Worse looking than toUtf16? Would you prefer if int => int32, long => 
int64, short => int16, byte => int8, real => float80 (portability be 
damned), double => float64, float => float32? They'd certainly be more 
obvious, but I can tell you I'd go crazy.

  - Gregor Richards